Monday, December 18, 2017

Three of my nieces love to swim and this year the youngest asked if I would make her something for her "Good Lucks" to give the other participants. I have done this in years past but this year I made Christmas Tree Ornaments with a swim theme. So while I wish her the best of luck in getting great times as well as the other swimmers in her group, here is how I made these, there are ten in total:

I started with a piece of wood I purchased at Michael's then had my husband cut it down into slices and drill holes into the tops for hangers. I then took the Hero Arts set Coloring Layering Goldfish and stamped the base layer direct onto the wood circles in Hero Arts Shadow Ink in Butter Bar, the next layer was stamped in Hero Arts Ombre Butter to Orange ink and then did the eye/mouth detail in Versa Fine Onyx Black. I then stamped the three air bubbles in Hero Arts Ombre Tide Pool to Navy ink and filled them in with the Spectrum Noir Glitter pen and coated them with Glossy Accents. I found an old stamp set in my craft room with smaller numbers and stamped the year in Hero Arts Ombre Tide Pool to Navy ink near the top. I then took the sentiment from the Hero Arts set and cut it apart..... which is only the second or third time I have ever done that, and while I know it does not hurt the stamps it is just so against my normal behavior that I still flinch when I do it, even if it makes it easier for me in the long run. I started by laying out the word "swimming" and curving it slightly so it would fit at the bottom of the ornament, then I stamped it onto the ten wood slices in Versa Fine Onyx Black ink, once they were dry I then took the "Just Keep" part of the sentiment and cut it apart and stamped the "Keep" in Versa Fine Onyx Black ink over the "swimming" then I used some of the green sea grass and stamped them at the bottom in Hero Arts Shadow Ink in Green Hills and coated them with the Spectrum Noir Glitter pen for some added shine. On the back I used some letter stamps from my stash and stamped out WAGs in Hero Arts Ombre Tide Pool to Navy. I then found some pretty blue silky cord and attached two small jingle bells and then tied them off.

My niece called after giving the other participants and coaches their ornaments and gifts and they were a hit. One of the coaches even put his on his Christmas tree right away and sent a picture. And since this post had not gone live, my niece did really well with her times and brought her A game to WAGs, dropping seconds in almost all of her events. I am so proud of her, as I am with all my nieces and nephews. Hope you enjoyed seeing my newest project and I will see you all soon!

Friday, December 8, 2017

Hello Everyone,
For my design team project I decided to try out my Ken Oliver Color Bursts and go with a cool color scheme. So I started with a large piece of water color paper, I figured I could cut out the perfect background piece and have left overs to make more pretty stuff with. Then I got to playing. I started by getting the paper wet and adding the Color Burst in Turquoise then spraying more water and letting the color move, I added some Ken Oliver Liquid Metals in Platinum and love the shimmer it gives, it is so hard to get it to photograph but is so pretty in real life.

I let my paper dry overnight. Once it was dry I cut out a piece with a large rectangle stitched die and then laid out my snowflake stamps in my MISTI. All the snow flakes came from the Let It Snow (9085-Z) set from Raisin Boat. I used my versa mark ink and stamped the flakes and then used platinum embossing powder and heat set. I turned my card stock around in the MISTI and rearranged my stamps and did the process again. I set the finished panel aside and turned my attention to the sentiment. I laid out a piece of water color paper and used the circle snowflake word stamp from the Holiday Wishes (9309-Z) Raisin Boat stamp set and stamped with versa mark ink and heat set with the platinum embossing powder. I then borrowed a tag die from a crafty friend, I loved the scalloped detail at the bottom, and laid it on the paper to see where I wanted to add the sentiment. I decided to offset the circle and then stamped the sentiment from the same Holiday Wishes set, in Ranger Archival Ink in Paradise Teal. Then I cut out the tag with my die cutting machine. I popped up the tag with foam tape and added it with a slight offset to the finished blue and white snowflake background and then added the completed finished piece to a dark grey card base cut to 4 1/4" x 11" then folded at 5 1/2" for a top fold card. I then used a small piece of glimmery white tulle and added a bow to the tag top.

I hope you have enjoyed my project, please come play along with the new mood board, the colors are so pretty and you may win a $20 Gift Certificate.

Saturday, December 2, 2017

Hello everyone,
Happy Saturday everyone! I have been looking at this stamp from Victorine Originals and in my head I have ideas.... but it is making those ideas work that has kept me stumped, until I found this pretty Christmas paper in my craft room. The greens and reds with the cream background just made me think I can make it work! So I pulled out a piece of red card stock and cut it down to 4 1/4 x 11" and folded it at 5 1/2" for a top folding card base, I then set that aside. I then cut the decorated card stock down to 4" x 5 1/4" and I found this pretty ribbon in my Christmas paper box and thought it would be the perfect touch on the bottom, so I took the three colors and attached them to the backside and twisted them and then pulled them across the front of the card and attached to the back, then I cut fun foam to go on the back of the card stock and cut a channel out for the ribbon so it would not push that part higher on the front. Then I laid that down onto the red card base and set it all aside. I then took a piece of matching red card stock and cut it with a die in my stash and took some Nuvo Glimmer Paste in Moonstone and used a snow stencil to add some dimension to the die cut card stock. While that was drying I used my MISTI and stamped the Polka Dotted Christmas Tree on vellum with versamark ink and heat embossed with white embossing powder, I did this three times to make it very smooth and thick, then when it was cool I fussy cut the vellum tree. I then spent a long time cutting small pieces of foam tape and attaching them to the back of the tree, I went around the small polka dots before I decided to use the rainbow confetti sequins and cover the polka dots where the vellum was showing. When my red die cut piece was dry I attached it to the card base and then attached the tree and once that was completed I then added the confetti pieces in blues, red, green, silver and gold in random sizes. I am so happy with how the card came out and hope you enjoy.

Please make sure to check out the ongoing mood board, pictured below, and join in, we would love to see your projects.